All posts in category Global

Capsugel Sale: Pfizer is selling its drug capsule-making unit, Capsugel, to private-equity firm KKR for $2.38 billion in cash, the WSJ reports. The drug maker is reviewing all its business units, and an analyst report released last month said the company might spin off enough businesses to reduce its annual revenue base to about $35 billion or $40 billion from about $67 billion …

Radiation Detection: Parents in Tokyo are being warned not to give their infants tap water following the discovery of elevated levels of radioactive iodine in the water, the WSJ reports. The levels are still considered safe for adults. The same warning applies in areas closer to the nuclear power plant, the WSJ reports separately. Meantime, the FDA has banned imports of milk, milk products and fresh fruits and vegetables from the area around the plant, the Los Angeles Times reports …

The FDA is going to monitor pharmaceuticals made in Japan — as well as food products — for any signs of elevated radiation levels, a spokeswoman for the agency tells us.

On Thursday we reported that the FDA would monitor future imports of fish, other food products and raw materials that originate or pass through Japan in transit to the U.S. Pharmaceutical products will also be monitored, the spokeswoman says …

Still, regulators in other countries are testing food imported from Japan for signs of radiation. The FDA will monitor future imports of fish, other food products and raw materials that originate in or pass through Japan in transit, an agency spokeswoman tells the Health Blog …

Radiation Risk: The existence and extent of the radiation risk to human health in Japan will hinge on whether the nuclear reactors experience a full or partial meltdown and whether the wind blows radiation out to sea or inland, the WSJ reports. Yesterday there was a temporary spike in radiation levels in Tokyo, though the absolute levels were still very small. At this point the workers struggling to cool the reactors are the people most likely to be exposed to harmful radiation, the WSJ reports, though at current levels of exposure and the usual precautions they aren’t expected to get radiation poisoning …

The effort to wipe out polio began some 20 years ago and continues today. Eradicating a virus is tough; this century, there has been only one success — smallpox — out of six attempts, according to Bruce Aylward, head of the World Health Organization’s Global Polio Eradication Initiative.

Certain aspects of polio make it more difficult to eliminate than smallpox, said Aylward during a talk at the TED2011 conference. The talk was moderated by Bill Gates …

A lemon always tastes sour, doesn’t it? It doesn’t have to, according to Homaro Cantu and Ben Roche, two chefs who spoke late yesterday at this year’s TED conference. (TED describes itself as a gathering of “the world’s leading thinkers and doers.” This year’s theme is “the rediscovery of wonder.”)

Cantu and Roche work on creating “flavor transformations” in their kitchen-based science lab to create products like edible pictures, foods that look like inedible objects …

Two Roads Diverge: Pfizer and Merck are both facing the loss of patent protection on best-selling drugs, but their strategies for dealing with it are different — and Wall Street is weighing in, the WSJ reports. Merck is investing in drug development for the long haul, even though that investment will keep it from meeting previously announced growth targets. Its shares fell yesterday. Pfizer, meantime, is cutting R&D, a move that pleased investors, the paper reports …

People are a-Twitter about the fact that George Clooney is recovering from a bout with malaria. The star tells CNN’s Piers Morgan in an interview scheduled to be broadcast tonight that he acquired the disease while in Sudan. (Actually, he says this was the second time he’s come down with the parasite.)

As the nonprofit Malaria No More notes, an estimated 781,000 people — most of them kids under age five — died from the disease in 2009. In sub-Saharan Africa …

The placebo effect: Researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center found that nearly 60 percent of patients suffering from irritable bowel syndrome given two sugar pills instead of real medicines reported improvement. Such a placebo effect is well known, but the researchers also showed it works even when the patients knew they were taking placebos, the Boston Globe reports …

Overseas Hurdles: There’s no honeymoon for Ian Read, Pfizer’s new CEO. As the WSJ reports, two of the company’s emerging-markets point people have recently departed, and China has cut medication prices by an average of 19%. Pfizer and other pharma companies are counting on emerging economies to fuel growth that’s harder to come by in already established markets …

Treatment Motivations?: The WSJ investigates the increase in a prostate-cancer treatment called intensity-modulated radiation therapy, and what role financial incentives have played in its popularity. Urologist groups have purchased the equipment used in the therapy, hired radiation oncologists to operate it and referred patients for in-house treatment, raising criticism that they are doing so to capture the procedure’s big Medicare reimbursements. The urologist groups say they are just responding …

But as the WSJ reports, the H5N1 strain that caused the original outbreak never quite went away, and today the Japanese government confirmed an outbreak in chickens in a rural area. After a handful of chickens died from the disease, 21,500 birds on the same farm were slaughtered …

The prices of health-care goods and services are tough to suss out. Two surveys out today attempt to bring some clarity to how costs stack up, both between different countries and among U.S. providers that might be just a few blocks apart.

The cholera outbreak in Haiti is worsening, with thousands infected and 724 confirmed dead — including 80 people in the last 24 hours, the BBC reports. Meantime, the World Health Organization is warning that there could be as many as 200,000 cases over the next six to 12 months.

It’s against this grim background that the United Nations is asking for almost $164 million to help combat the disease, which spreads via contaminated water …

Controversy over Planned Parenthood has drawn new attention to the use of fetal tissue for medical research, a decades-old practice that remains common in some fields even as alternatives are explored.